Getting Started!

Hi all, my name is Calum, I'm 23 years old and I'm from the UK. I've been lurking this site for a few days, and I've learned a great deal, but all of this information can be slightly overwhelming! I'm new to all of this, so I was helping I could get a few pointers. My goal is to attain the gymnastic body (naturally), be more flexible, and do a little of what a gymnast can. I don't expect to be doing triple somersaults, but I'd like to be able to hold an iron cross for longer than a couple of seconds, and I'd love to be able to do side lever pulls.

These are my fitness goals, but I'm a long way from attaining them, I'm starting my quest from the very beginning. I have almost no strength whatsoever after leading a sedentary lifestyle. Where do I start? Where does an absolute beginner to the world of strength and flexibility start out? I can do only a handful of push ups, I'd be surprised if I can muster the strength for one pull up, and my core strength is extremely lacking.

I'm currently eating at a caloric deficit attained by both eating smaller portions of "cleaner" food, and more exercise via cycling and walking. I lose a steady 1.5-2lbs per week. I'm 5' 6" annd 140lbs for reference. I still have at least 30lbs to shed, and I'm hoping to be done with my initial fat loss phase by the end of June.

I am not flexible, where does a beginner start for flexibility? As well purchasing Coach Sommer's book, I borrowed a book from the library called "Relax Into Stretch" by Pavel Tastsouline, is this a good starting point?

There's my background information, what I'd really like to know is where do I go from here? can I start bodyweight resistance training right away on a caloric deficit diet? What kinda of exercises should I start with? Push ups, crunches, dips, pull ups, squats? How do I get more flexible? What kind of program should I following?

I hope some of you can provide some insight, thank you.

Welcome, cjt.

If a person is very deconditioned and overfat, they can gain strength and muscle while on a caloric deficit. While you are very deconditioned, you are not overfat enough to gain strength in a caloric deficit. 140lbs. at 5'6" is not that fat even if you have little muscle. You probably don't have abs, but you are hardly fat. If you lost 30 pounds you would be sickly skinny. You would do good to be the same weight you are now only with more muscle and less fat.

As far as where to start, the book lays that out for you. It has progressions for people to do pullups even if they can't do 1 full pullup. Just follow Coaches workouts from the front page and check the book for the progressions that are appropriate for you.

Good luck and welcome aboard!

Hi, cjt. Welcome to the forum.

Pavel Tastsouline's stretching methods are pretty much a much less effective version of Thomas Kurz's method, but not as effective. Thomas Kurz is the worlds leading expert on flexibility (and it shows, check out all the testimonial pics of people doing hanging splits). His information is at http://stadion.com/

I use his methods, and my flexibility is increasing rapidly.

Thank you, I will check the site out. Is all the information I need to get flexible on his website?

I have another question. In regards to strength training, is it best just to do 5 sets of 5 reps once per day? Can I do more training throughout the day? Like 5 sets of pull ups in the morning, 5 more later on in the afternoon, and 5 more before I go to bed? I want to do what is optimal for strength progression.

For strength, no. I just read your post and you absolutely need to stop trying to lose weight. Stay at 140 and just eat clean food, enough to maintain your weight. You'll probably gain a little as you put on muscle, because fat doesn't need much of anything to maintain.

In fact, as far as your weight goes, don't ever worry about numbers unless you're 400 lbs or you have bodyfat over 20%. Pay attention about how you look and how you perform. You want to feel your shirts get a little tighter as your shoulders, arms, and chest grow. You might want to feel your waist line get a little looser, I don't know... haven't seen a picture! But don't worry about the scale. You are not in a position to worry with your height and weight.

When performing the exercises, stick to slow deliberate movements. I can't remember if the book specifically mentions this, but taking a full 2 seconds to go up, 1 second hold, and 2 seconds to go back down(with the pull up as the example here, but apply the same concept to every exercise) is important. When you move slow like that you help your joints get stronger without hurting them. When you move faster the joints are exposed to a moment of very, very high stress but then have less stress for most of the movement and so they don't become stronger as quickly since they aren't being exposed to so much steady strain, and the short moments of high stress are usually what cause people to get sore joints. This can allow you to develop over-misuse injuries without realizing it, so going "slow" is really worthwhile.

Start at whatever progression you can easily handle a few sets of 5 for with the dynamic exercises, and if you're working out full body don't try to do more than two workouts per week for your first two weeks. You'll be sore no matter what, and there's no sense in being super-duper-pooper sore when you only need to be sore. Know what I mean?

In the beginning week, I'd suggest you do the workouts evenly spaced. Monday and Friday, for example, or Monday and Thursday. I'd suggest Friday for your second workout, or three days after the first if you don't do Monday as workout 1. Why? You're going to be sore. As funny as that may sound, one single set will make you sore when you haven't been doing anything for a while! So warm up and then do one set of each exercise, picking one for handstand work, one for pull ups, one for push ups, one for squat, one for abs, and one for back/butt/hamstrings. This will be pretty fast, and that's the point. You'll slowly work into doing a full workout over the first three weeks. The second workout of week one, if you are not sore at all, you can go for two sets if you like. I'd suggest one, but that's up to you.

Starting with week two you'll do two sets per workout. Still do twice per week, your body's not totally adjusted. Ideally, when you start week 3, you won't be sore at all. If you've stuck to the plan and only done two workouts with two sets per exercise on week two, and stuck to the rep ranges in the book, you'll be fine.

With week 3 you should be ready to do 3 workouts. The first workout is two or three sets, depending on how you feel. Each workout after that for week 3 is 3 sets. After you complete week 3 your body is pretty much in the swing of things, but you will continue to notice fairly rapid strength gains for at least the next few weeks. After 2 or 3 months at the most, your strength gains will slow down. Don't get discouraged, you aren't doing anything wrong. The first few months always show fast gains because your body is still becoming comfortable and familiar with the movements you are using and is slowly allowing you to use its full strength. Once you get there, gaining new strength goes slower. We will all be here to help guide you if you run into any snags.

For now, I'd suggest following what I have laid out. Always remember, when building strength you never want to do more than you have to. In a way, it is the opposite of endurance. The more work you do, the more repairs your body has to make. Your body doesn't grow until it has finished all the repair work first. So if you do so much work that your body hasn't even finished repairing or growing before your next workout, you are going to have a hard time making progress. So don't think about doing more, more more! Think about being patient, working hard for the sets that you DO, and eating and sleeping well. Those are the keys to success.

Approach the static holds in the same way. Just do a little bit the first week, a little more the second week, a little more the third week, and by week 4 or 5 you'll be ready to do 40-50 seconds of total work per hold and not get hurt. Be smart! If you are ever not sure which progression to start with, go with the easier of the two choices! Taking a little extra time to make sure you are totally ready is always smarter than jumping in too soon! I'm not going to wish you good luck, because you don't need it, but I wish you good spirits and good motivation! In fitness, and especially here, patience, consistency, and hard(but not TOO HARD) work are the keys to success! Welcome to the forum!

Thanks for very informative post, slizzardman. I watched a couple of your youtube uploads and learned a couple of new things. I still have a fair bit of body fat to shed, but should I start with push ups, crunches, and squats right away? I'm currently eating 1200 calories a day, split roughly 50% protein, 30% carb, 20% fat. How much more should I eat?

I will need to make some parallettes too.

cjt said:

should I start with push ups, crunches, and squats right away?

quite literally start at the very beginning progression for every section at least for a week or two to test your strengths. Do the first or one of the first variations from pulling, pressing, legs and core. MPPu and MPPr can wait for now. Start with the basic progressions for statics as well. You can do a planche variation if you want, however it might be best left till later when 1) some progress has been made with the back lever and 2) basic pressing and support strength has been achieved.

I definitely agree with nick. on how to select your exercises at first. Also, for planche I would start with planche leans. In fact, if you haven't been active at ALL before starting here, at least with your upper body, I'd wait until the second month to start the planche and back lever work, if that is something you are planning to include in your workouts

Honestly, if you keep the same nutrient split that you have and eat clean, it is going to be hard for you to eat too much. You are not going to be able to get by with less than 1800 calories, I don't think, but what you really need to do is get on Google, search for "calorie calculator" and pu tin your height and weight and select the appropriate activity level to the best of your ability. Then try to eat that much! If it's more than 200 calories above your current diet, which it will be, just add 200 or so a week. A bite of food extra a day, you know? Nice and easy until you get your calories up to whatever they need to be.

slizzardman said:

For strength, no. I just read your post and you absolutely need to stop trying to lose weight. Stay at 140 and just eat clean food, enough to maintain your weight. You'll probably gain a little as you put on muscle, because fat doesn't need much of anything to maintain.

In fact, as far as your weight goes, don't ever worry about numbers unless you're 400 lbs or you have bodyfat over 20%. Pay attention about how you look and how you perform. You want to feel your shirts get a little tighter as your shoulders, arms, and chest grow. You might want to feel your waist line get a little looser, I don't know... haven't seen a picture! But don't worry about the scale. You are not in a position to worry with your height and weight.

When performing the exercises, stick to slow deliberate movements. I can't remember if the book specifically mentions this, but taking a full 2 seconds to go up, 1 second hold, and 2 seconds to go back down(with the pull up as the example here, but apply the same concept to every exercise) is important. When you move slow like that you help your joints get stronger without hurting them. When you move faster the joints are exposed to a moment of very, very high stress but then have less stress for most of the movement and so they don't become stronger as quickly since they aren't being exposed to so much steady strain, and the short moments of high stress are usually what cause people to get sore joints. This can allow you to develop over-misuse injuries without realizing it, so going "slow" is really worthwhile.

Start at whatever progression you can easily handle a few sets of 5 for with the dynamic exercises, and if you're working out full body don't try to do more than two workouts per week for your first two weeks. You'll be sore no matter what, and there's no sense in being super-duper-pooper sore when you only need to be sore. Know what I mean?

In the beginning week, I'd suggest you do the workouts evenly spaced. Monday and Friday, for example, or Monday and Thursday. I'd suggest Friday for your second workout, or three days after the first if you don't do Monday as workout 1. Why? You're going to be sore. As funny as that may sound, one single set will make you sore when you haven't been doing anything for a while! So warm up and then do one set of each exercise, picking one for handstand work, one for pull ups, one for push ups, one for squat, one for abs, and one for back/butt/hamstrings. This will be pretty fast, and that's the point. You'll slowly work into doing a full workout over the first three weeks. The second workout of week one, if you are not sore at all, you can go for two sets if you like. I'd suggest one, but that's up to you.

Starting with week two you'll do two sets per workout. Still do twice per week, your body's not totally adjusted. Ideally, when you start week 3, you won't be sore at all. If you've stuck to the plan and only done two workouts with two sets per exercise on week two, and stuck to the rep ranges in the book, you'll be fine.

With week 3 you should be ready to do 3 workouts. The first workout is two or three sets, depending on how you feel. Each workout after that for week 3 is 3 sets. After you complete week 3 your body is pretty much in the swing of things, but you will continue to notice fairly rapid strength gains for at least the next few weeks. After 2 or 3 months at the most, your strength gains will slow down. Don't get discouraged, you aren't doing anything wrong. The first few months always show fast gains because your body is still becoming comfortable and familiar with the movements you are using and is slowly allowing you to use its full strength. Once you get there, gaining new strength goes slower. We will all be here to help guide you if you run into any snags.

For now, I'd suggest following what I have laid out. Always remember, when building strength you never want to do more than you have to. In a way, it is the opposite of endurance. The more work you do, the more repairs your body has to make. Your body doesn't grow until it has finished all the repair work first. So if you do so much work that your body hasn't even finished repairing or growing before your next workout, you are going to have a hard time making progress. So don't think about doing more, more more! Think about being patient, working hard for the sets that you DO, and eating and sleeping well. Those are the keys to success.

Approach the static holds in the same way. Just do a little bit the first week, a little more the second week, a little more the third week, and by week 4 or 5 you'll be ready to do 40-50 seconds of total work per hold and not get hurt. Be smart! If you are ever not sure which progression to start with, go with the easier of the two choices! Taking a little extra time to make sure you are totally ready is always smarter than jumping in too soon! I'm not going to wish you good luck, because you don't need it, but I wish you good spirits and good motivation! In fitness, and especially here, patience, consistency, and hard(but not TOO HARD) work are the keys to success! Welcome to the forum!

Nice advice!

cjt said:

Thanks for very informative post, slizzardman. I watched a couple of your youtube uploads and learned a couple of new things. I still have a fair bit of body fat to shed, but should I start with push ups, crunches, and squats right away? I'm currently eating 1200 calories a day, split roughly 50% protein, 30% carb, 20% fat. How much more should I eat?

I will need to make some parallettes too.

bodyweight x 15 is an easy way to estimate maintenance calorie needs (the amount of calories needed to maintain your current body weight).

So, 140 x 15 = 2100

Thanks triangle! I like the easy calorie count! Great ballpark figure.

A very sedentary male might need x14, whereas a very active male x16. So, x15 hits right down the middle.

Females will figure about 13-15 depending on activity level.

Of course real world results will always determine the final result.

hahaha for me then just 2200 calories whole 1500 calories deficit per day

You mean you eat 3700 cals per day? I guess so, you are a world class athlete after all! You train more hours than even x16 I'm sure.

Yes on a strength day (3 days/per week). Far less on a technique day and I make a deficit on a rest day.

When I was at buds I was eating 10-12000 a day. Yea. And I lost around 20 lbs in 3 weeks eating that way.